With foreign private equity funds actively buying local firms, the financial regulator could tighten buyout rules as it considers allowing minority shareholders to veto buyout offers.
"In light of increasing management buyout deals or offers by overseas private equity shops of late, we have been considering amending the regulations with reference to rules in Hong Kong," Financial Supervisory Commission spokeswoman Susan Chang (張秀蓮) said yesterday.
Chang said the regulator hoped to find a balance between better protection of minority shareholders and an accommodating environment for mergers and acquisitions.
A management buyout (MBO) signifies that a company will go private through the purchase, by management, of a majority or all outstanding shares from shareholders.
The Economic Daily News reported yesterday that the commission had suggested that the Ministry of Economic Affairs amend the Business Mergers and Acquisitions Law (企業併購法) and allow minority shareholders controlling a combined 10 percent stake to veto takeover proposals.
"We plan to require higher transparency and full disclosure of terms in the MBO cases, as well as evaluation of offers by a third party if necessary," Chang said.
The commission will instruct its subordinate bureaus to study the plan's feasibility and tender the results for discussion, Chang said.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day